Dog Whistle
by thi3f
Summary: It seems like the things you're screaming, no one seems to hear. Deals with self-cutting, depression. Chapter Three is now up. Slight Daiken, I guess.
1. do you get angry, too?

-_- Uh. . . yeah. Scribbled this out in a few minutes. Ken-slicing and dicing himself. Enjoy,if that's your bag.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.  
  
  
  
Onwards!  
  
  
  
  
  
DOG WHISTLE  
  
  
  
The knife felt warm on my palm's skin, and for a moment I could pretend that it radiated its own warmth, and not the heat it had leeched from my body.  
  
Well, knives do that. Especially if they've been pressed against the small of your back for eight hours. I'll tell you, being in school with that thing in a sheath under my stupid dove-grey uniform and trying to sit in a chair. . . I was afraid that someone would discover the blade, and then all my precious plans would just go all to waste.  
  
I'm Ken Ichijouji, and my plans never go to waste.  
  
All that day I sat, sweated, nervously clenched and unclenched my hands into fists as I waited for someone to try and give me a friendly slap, and the knife would fall out. Oh, they'd say, and I would hang my head like the good little boy I had always been. Ken, we didn't know you were so unhappy!  
  
It would be like a friggin' movie, I tell you, and I'd get help and realise that life is worth living and the sun would set on a perfect little world.  
  
What a load.  
  
What a load, I thought, as I looked down on the impersonal gleam of the knife's razor edge, and a familiar sneer crept onto my face and settled down to stay. I could just see a slice of my reflection in that shine. My blue eyes, my dark hair that hung like a curtain, separating me from the world and everything in it, and my expression. I was halfway between a smile and a sneer, and the result was that I looked quite similar to the Kaiser. In fact, I wantedsomeone to find out how bad I'd been, how I hurt myself and how I hated myself. Maybe. . . maybe a movie could come true, right? For a second, I nearly dared to hope, before the flame guttered and died under the draft of reality.  
  
It was too dark in my room.  
  
I rose from my kneel in my room's centre, and stepped to the door to flick on the lights. It never should be dark when you damage yourself, it ought to be bright and full of life, just as you are leaving it. Besides, wouldn't seeing your blood drain out of your body be. . . romantic in a way?  
  
I know I have problems now.  
  
Blood draining--*romantic*?! But somehow the idea appealed to me on some basic level. Evil blood, dirty blood that surged and crept through my veins like a filthy, wild animal. I would tame it, show it that it stayed only on *my* behest. I was master here, and I would choose when and where that dog would leave.  
  
Leafmon was in the kitchen, chugging something down. I would have no distractions as I set the blade against my forearm and began to slowly drag it upwards at my heart. Just as I had planned, the great Ken Ichijouji had planned, the skin ripped and tore, blood washing outwards like tears to try and heal the damage. Like an ocean straining against bindings, it broke free, and leapt down in a horrible, cleansing wave.  
  
I smiled, my lips curvinf tightly against the pain as real tears flooded my vision. I ought to know this by now-the pain. They had never mentioned the pain in all those Psychology courses I'd taken. But it hurt, so much. I wallowed in it, like some kind of hippopotamus in thick African mud I wallowed in the pain, used to keep the flies, the annoyances of the real world, off my thin hide.  
  
As long as I was in pain, no one else could touch me. I was in my own world where my emotions were expressed directly, without pretense, strictly for me.  
  
Blood dripped down, onto my thighs.  
  
Blood slithered down snakelike, tracing a soft red tongue across my pale flesh. Ken Ichijouji was alone with his creatures, and they heeded his silent screams and calls inside his polite apartment and neat room.  
  
Only they, and nobody else.  
  
  
  
  
  
. . . fini 


	2. apples, oranges and angels

DOG WHISTLE  
  
Part Two  
  
How long shall this go on for? I dunno.  
  
Onwards!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
DOG WHISTLE  
  
  
  
*  
  
Despite everything, I always expected him to be like steel.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Daisuke was a cheerful child, one who was not prone to giving up. If he perchance scraped a knee, he would bounce back again; if he made a mistake, he'd simply move on and banish the fault to the shadowy realm of The Past. Especially now, there was a healthy ruddy glow in his toned cheeks and his eyes danced to look up at the deepest of navy blues-the sky in winter.  
  
"Isn't it pretty, Ken? Eh, Ken?" The leader of the Digidestined nudged his companion with one swaddled elbow, barely managing to tear his eyes away from the giant expanse of sky out above them. "Who would've thought you could see so many stars from the city?" He laughed outloud, unaware he was compensating for the steady silence of the violet-eyed boy at his side on the street, a mere day away from Christmas eve.  
  
Ken nodded once, slowly, and gave a small noise of assent. Snow trickled down from heaven above, dusting the city warm and white. Cars parked on the streets looked like sleeping animals, and their footsteps crunched and squeaked as they moved along. All in all, it was a restful evening. Everything in the world seemed collected and at peace with itself.  
  
The snow continued to fall, even as Daisuke closed his mouth, watching the other boy with an expression that verged and trembled on the edge of plain concern. Daisuke knew only plain emotions.  
  
"Ne, Ken?"  
  
Ken grunted again. His head continued to hang itself down under the weight of his thoughts and a fine, silky curtain of the darkest hair hid the eyes Daisuke searched to meet. Daisuke, though, knew they were a brilliant violet. Like amethysts. The boys meandered down the street, side by side but not together.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Never to fail, never to fall.  
  
His exterior was shiny and hard,  
  
did he ruin  
  
from the inside out?  
  
  
  
*  
  
They were sprawled over Ken's couch with the television flickering in front of them. Ken was whipping his ass at James Bond, 007, as was usual. Daisuke grunted as he tried a particularly effective super-move that seemed to require the use of twelve fingers and a photographic memory.  
  
Who the fuck did those game designers think could do these moves anyway?  
  
Daisuke swore softly and threw the controller down onto the carpet in disgust as his man was quite neatly aerated through the head by Ken's sniper. "Hey, but *you* won, ne?" The boy glanced casually at his friend reclined on the other end.  
  
Nothing.  
  
There was no triumph on Ken's eyes. They were as flat and as lifeless as a stagnant pond in the middle of a cold snap. Nothing stirred within them, not even a fish-like idea come to snap at the surface.  
  
Daisuke, suddenly, swallowed violently.  
  
Plain concern was winning out. What was wrong with his friend? He knew that Ken wasn't the cheeriest person in the world to begin with, but what gave? This wasn't like his friend at all, not even to gloat a little.  
  
He wouldn't smile, dammit! Ken wouldn't SMILE!  
  
Daisuke swallowed again, unsure of how to translate the peculiar twist in his chest into words, and instead looked back at the TV again. "We're buds." It wasn't quite a question.  
  
Abruptly, Ken ripped his level gaze away from the television and the gore. "Yes. Of course, Dai-chan."  
  
"Then you know. . ."Daisuke licked his lips nervously and rubbed his palm against his denim-clad knee. "You can talk to me whenever you want." God, he wanted to say more. Ask why Ken never wore short-sleeved shirts anymore, and his smiles were rarer and rarer in coming. There was a time, once, that Daisuke could make him smile. There was a time when *only* Daisuke could make him smile.  
  
Daisuke was afraid, and the twist in his chest refused to die, even after Ken nodded, and slew another of his characters with an effortlessly played super-move.  
  
  
  
*  
  
Maybe  
  
I'm just losing?  
  
Losing my touch,  
  
or losing you.  
  
* 


	3. iceberg

Play Galerians. It's a kickass PlayStation game. Really.  
  
  
  
Dogwhistle  
  
  
  
  
  
Daisuke ambled to Ken's front door and raised his hand to knock. Paused. Lately their relationship had been deteriorating at an alarming rate. Ken would be kind one moment, full of life and energy and the very spirit of fun, and the next he would snap, snarl and retreat from even his friend's touch.  
  
Daisuke found that his breath was held, even though he knew no one could hear. Did Ken even like him any longer? He didn't understand why Ken wouldn't meet his eyes. Daisuke's innards twisted and curled around each other, vying to be the one to make the boy expel his entire breakfast.  
  
What had he done wrong?  
  
Why didn't Ken want to be near him any longer?  
  
Slowly, Daisuke dropped his arm to his side. His hand hung limply as he turned and walked away through the gray afternoon drizzle. Every so often, he would send a half-hearted kick to the dead leaves in the gutter and flash a look over his shoulder at Ken's apartment, where he knew the boy's bedroom window was.  
  
Something was wrong here. Very wrong indeed.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Ken stepped back and let the blind cover the glass again. Of course Daisuke left! Only because he, Ken, had been so horrible to him! His teeth ground together in a low 'goro-goro' as he backed away and flopped onto his bed. It was his fault, of course. All his eyes ever saw was the perfection everyone so casually assumed. *They* didn't have these thoughts in their head, or these cuts on their arms.  
  
Ken's cheek pressed into the sheets as he rolled to his side and stared with dead eyes at the wall.  
  
And of course Daisuke wouldn't press the issue. Why would anyone waste time on a thing like him?  
  
He wished he had something sharp, something metal.  
  
Something clean.  
  
  
  
*  
  
No one at school bothered talking much to Ken, as when they tried (he looked very kind) an invisible brick wall would erect itself behind his eyes. Why didn't they just leave him alone? Couldn't they see how horrible he was? Couldn't they see that he wasn't worth talking to in the least?  
  
Of course not.  
  
They may have been perfect, but they were stupid.  
  
He dug the lead of his pencil into his notepaper until it snapped. Your insides weren't supposed to fight against each other like this, were they? Were you *supposed* to feel as if you were being torn into two different people all the time? Was this just some kind of adolescent thing that would go away in time?  
  
Ken wanted to cry, but there were other students nearby. He wanted to go home, but it was only third period. He wanted to scream, but his pride kept that stupid blank smile on his face and his motions carefully controlled.  
  
And of course, no one noticed. Why would they? Sit down with someone for lunch, why don't you, and ask them to tell you all their problems. Ninety- nine times out of one hundred, you'll leave that place thankful that you aren't them. Everyone else had their plates full, who could bother with one child? Especially Ken. Ken was brilliant, remember, so he ought to be able to handle something as simple as this.  
  
No one noticed at all.  
  
Except for one. 


End file.
